1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of insurance claims. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for displaying messages while processing insurance claims using a messages table.
2. Description of the Related Art
Insurance companies have been processing and settling claims associated with bodily injury for a long time. The task of evaluating, analyzing or estimating the amount of damage associated with one or more types of bodily injuries, especially trauma-induced bodily injuries, can be very complex. Complexity in the evaluation process often arises out of the fact that concurrent expertise in legal, medical and insurance fields is often required to arrive at a particular decision involving a bodily injury claim.
The processing of insurance claims, especially bodily injury related insurance claims, is typically performed by one or more computers included in a computer system. The user typically interacts with the insurance claim processing computer system using a computer coupled to a display terminal and a keyboard. An application software program, which typically executes on a computer linked to the insurance claim processing computer system, provides the functionality to perform the processing of insurance claims. The process of determining an estimated amount of the claim associated with a bodily injury is typically interactive. The user may provide inputs to the insurance claim processing computer system by specifying the type or extent of bodily injury, describing the nature of treatments, etc.
The insurance claim processing computer system may use various messages displayed on the display terminal for prompting or communicating with the user to provide meaningful and relevant input information. Messages may also be used to advise user of a status or condition of application program, list of missing inputs, warning or error messages, etc. In some cases, messages may be output to a printer rather than being displayed on a display screen.
During the past several years, many insurance companies have been using an earlier computer-based claim-processing system to process, evaluate, analyze or estimate thousands of claims. The computer-based claim-processing system may also be an expert system which utilizes and builds a knowledge base to assist the user in decision making. It may allow the insurance companies to define new rules and/or use previously defined rules, in real-time. The business rules may be generally written by industry experts to evaluate legal, medical, insurance conditions before arriving at a valuation of a claim. The computer based claim-processing system also used messages displayed on a screen to interact with the system user.
There were several drawbacks with the earlier computer-based system. For example, the messages that were generated while processing the insurance claim, used in the prior art, lacked flexibility and was inefficient. The prior art used hard-coded messages. That is, the actual messages, including the message text, were part of the application program source code. Messages were generated specific to the context of the application program. Thus, many messages which may have had the same text or message content had to be programmed and stored separately and could not be re-used. This increased memory requirements and decreased system performance. In addition, it was difficult to modify and install the application software for use in other countries, which used a language other than, for example, US English. Maintenance of the messages hard-coded in the application program software was also time consuming and costly. This reduced the user's flexibility and usability.
It is, therefore, desirable to develop a new system and method for displaying messages while processing insurance claims using a messages table. It is desirable for the display of messages, including the message text, to be easily customizable for installation in a specific language and/or country. It is also desirable for the messages to be re-used throughout the claims processing application software. Furthermore, it is desirable to be able to store the messages in a repository, external to the application program. Thus, the messages display system and method should be of a flexible design to allow the user to freely select message text based on user requirements.